Entrepreneur takes advantage of the postal strike

As the turkeys at the Royal Mail officially vote for Christmas, entrepreneurs are quick off the mark spotting opportunities to build a business from the Royal Mail’s dissatisfied customers.  Here is a terrific video which is packed full of full with key business studies terms - even though it only lasts just over a minute!

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The Decline of Newspapers Creates a Surge in Local Startups

Here is a great way to allow students to consider two often separate elements of the business curriculum - the product life cycle and business startups…

V-Water - from start up to exit

The market space for enhanced water is getting crowded! Sales of ‘smoothies’ are down by more than fifty per cent this year but the volume of enhanced water bottles being bought is proving more resilient to the recession. And the growing amount of shelf space in the supermarket aisles given over to the likes of Firefly, Vitamin-Water, Just-Juice, Vitsmart and V-Water is testimony to the high margins these products generate. Chris Coleridge, co-Founder of V-Water gave a relaxed, entertaining and thoughtful presentation on the growth of his business to the Eton College Entrepreneurship Society on Thursday night. A large audience - fortified by a generous sample of the six flavoured drinks on offer - grilled Mr Coleridge on his business after he had taken time out to explode five myths about start-ups.

The dramatic slump in advertising revenue continues

Here’s the reason why executives at ITV are so worried about the current downturn and why newspaper and magazine journalists are collectively worried for the survival of their titles…

Todd Stitzer’s Strategic Test

A short, but terrific piece in the Times today outlines the strategic challenge for the CEO of Cadbury - Todd Stitzer.  Highly recommended for A2 students looking at business strategy…

Product life cycle - end of the line for Teletext

After 35 years of providing TV listings, sports results and weather forecasts, the analogue information service known as Teletext is to be closed...

How to improve profitability? - give customers a “staff appraisal”

Mike Southon is essential reading in the FT on a Saturday and his latest entry makes some really useful points for business students…

Coffee Republic struggles with the daily grind

This will be a story that is worth following over the Summer.  Leading coffee shop chain Coffee Republic is on the bring of going into administration according to the papers yesterday.  A story of over-ambitious expansion, unprofitable growth through franchises, the impact of the credit crunch and a struggle to handle intense competition from from better-resourced rivals such as Starbucks and Costa Coffee.  So far as I’m aware, Coffee Republic has never made a profit - though it has long been feted as an entrepreneurial success story…

What makes a profitable menu?

Here’s a challenge you could set your students…

Spare capacity prompts a fall in business investment

The recession is creating a growing amount of spare productive capacity across many different markets and industries. From container ships to hotels and from steel plants to airlines, the fall in demand has lowered capacity utilisation and put a big squeeze on profits. That pressure on profit margins comes not just from weaker revenues. Keep in mind that many businesses have a large fixed cost component such as the overhead costs of operating a network. Thus when output is contracting, the average fixed costs of production increase.

Declining demand and rising productive slack inevitably cause a fall in planned investment spending - economists term this a negative accelerator effect. BBC news reports that British Airways is cutting capital spending in response to the slump in demand and mounting losses. “The airline said it had cut spending by 20% to £580m ($952m) from £725m, and had lengthened its schedule of orders for 12 Airbus A380 aircraft.”

Further evidence for the reverse accelerator affect comes from Japan where Japanese firms cut their capital spending by a record level in the first quarter of 2009. In contrast Stagecoach is increasing investment in a fleet of greener buses.